Sunday, October 18, 2015

Dan Hardway gave me permission to share this with the world. I’m more than
happy to. Dan Hardway was one of the key investigators into the CIA’s role in
the JFK assassination for the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the
1970s. Hardway also has one of the finest minds I’ve met in this case and a
genuine dedication to getting at the truth of what happened.

= = = =

This link is to a JFKFacts published excerpt from my response to Phil
Shenon's assertion that RFK nominated Allen Dulles to serve on the Warren
Commission. The little bit JFKFacts printed is excepted from the following
fuller response to that assertion, just so you may know. Sapere aude.

David Talbot, in his brief Facebook response to Phil Shenon’s article in
Politico Magazine, “Yes, the CIA Director was Part of the JFK Assassination
Cover-Up,” denied the claim that Robert Kennedy was responsible for Allen
Dulles being on the Warren Commission. Shenon had said: “[President] Johnson
appointed Dulles to the commission at the recommendation of then-Attorney General
Robert Kennedy.” Talbot responded, “Shenon also repeats the old canard that RFK
urged President Johnson to appoint former CIA director Allen Dulles to the
Warren Commission. This bogus story apparently originated with Lyndon Johnson
himself, who alleged in his 1971 memoir that Bobby recommended both Dulles and
John McCloy, another Republican pillar of the Wall Street-national security
world. Johnson, of course, was one of the most notorious fabulists who ever
occupied the Oval Office. And his hatred of Bobby Kennedy, who by 1971 was
conveniently dead, was one of the core passions of LBJ's life. The notion that
Johnson would huddle with his arch enemy to make such a politically delicate
choice as the makeup of the Warren Commission is absurd. So is the idea that
Bobby himself would recommend two men who were political enemies of his late
brother -- two men with whom JFK had strongly clashed over national security
policy. In truth, as close CIA associates of Dulles later revealed, such as
Richard Helms, Dulles himself arm-twisted his way onto the Warren Commission,
where he and McCloy soon established themselves as the dominant players. This
is one more example of Shenon's gullibility when it comes to covering
CIA-related issues.”

In addition to David’s very valid points about the antipathy between Johnson
and RFK which, if anything, David understates here, and Johnson’s slim
acquaintance with the truth, I would like to point out a couple of additional
reasons to reject the idea of RFK being behind Dulles’ appointment to the
Warren Commission. As David says, this story’s first public appearance was in
LBJ’s memoirs as an unsupported allegation. (The Vantage Point, p. 27) An
earlier telephone transcript of a telephone call between LBJ and Abe Fortas, in
December of 1966, has Johnson saying “We even asked the Attorney General to
name people he wanted. He recommended people like Allen Dulles and John
McCloy.” The context of the conversation, however, is about countering
criticism of the President that they think may be coming from Nicholas
Katzenbach, President Johnson is telling Fortas that he needs to talk to
Katzenbach and telling him what to say to him. (See http://web2.millercenter.org/…/conversations/1966/lbj_wh661…
to hear the recording of the conversation.) The statement is in the context of
their continuing disputes and animosity.

It should be noted that no one who was close to Robert Kennedy has ever
confirmed his input into the selection of the members of the Warren Commission,
let alone his nomination of Allen Dulles and John J. McCloy. In addition, there
is only one contemporaneous document that can be cited as in any manner
supporting that assertion. The document is a Memorandum from Walter Jenkins,
LBJ’s top administrative assistant who had worked for him since 1939. The brief
memo is dated 11/29/63. It reports: “Abe [Fortas] has talked with Katzenbach
and Katzenbach has talked to the Attorney General. They recommend a seven man
commission – two Senators, two Congressmen, the Chief Justice, Allen Dulles,
and a retired Military Man....” A hand written note at the bottom of the page
says “orig. not sent to files.” The memo also bears the a stamp that indicates
it was received by Central Files on April 20, 1965. It is unlikely that this
document could ever be used as evidence on several grounds. The statement that
RFK approved Dulles is, at best triple hearsay – allegedly, RFK told Katzenbach
who told Fortas who told Jenkins who wrote the memo. The document also does not
bear standard indicia of credibility in that, as it notes, the original was not
preserved in the normal course of business, and a copy was not recorded until
seventeen months after the original had been written. The memo asks LBJ to
respond to three questions. I have not been able to find a copy of any
response.

Interestingly enough, LBJ also met with J. Edgar Hoover on November 29,
1963, at 1:39 p.m. They discussed the composition of the Commission Johnson was
considering, as Hoover reported in a memorandum:

“ He then indicated the only way to stop it is to appoint a high-level
committee to evaluate my report and tell the House and Senate not to go ahead
with the investigation. I stated that would be a three-ring circus.

“The President then asked what I think about Allen Dulles, and I replied
that he is a good man. He then asked about John McCloy, and I stated I am not
as enthusiastic about McCloy, that he is a good man but I am not so certain as
to the matter of publicity he might want. The President then mentioned General
(Lauris) Norstad, and I said he is a good man. He said in the House he might
try (Hale) Boggs and (Gerald R.) Ford and in the Senate (Richard B.) Russell
and (John Sherman) Cooper. I asked him about Cooper and he indicated Cooper of
Kentucky whom he described as a judicial man, stating he would not want (Jacob K.) Javits. I agreed on this point. He then reiterated Ford of Michigan, and I indicated I know of him but do not know him and had never
seen him except on television the other day and that he handled himself well on
television. I indicated that I do know Boggs.”

There was no discussion here of the Attorney General nor of any
recommendations he may have made. They went on to discuss other matters,
including some discussion of the Attorney General, but did not discuss anything
about the Attorney General and his alleged suggestions regarding the
composition of the Commission.

Jim Lesar and Dan Alcorn have called my attention to another recorded
telephone call between LBJ, RFK and Allen Dulles on June 23, 1964. This is truly
a remarkable, fascinating conversation, especially considering the strained
relationships between RFK and LBJ and RFK and Dulles. Those considerations make
some of the conversation’s subtleties ambiguous at best. Of particular note are
the references to the Warren Commission and its on-going work:

At 5:23, Dulles says to RFK, "What is the timing on this? (The proposed
Dulles trip to Mississippi). I'm on this other Commission you know, and we are
trying to finish up our work, you know, and I wouldn't want the Chief Justice
to think I'd run out on him." Is he concerned that this is a move by RFK
to get him less involved in the final deliberations of the Committee? Missing a
perfect opportunity to remind RFK that he is on the WC by his nomination, Dulles
here says nothing about it. Note the proximity of this assignment to the
untranscribed WC Executive Session of 6/29/64, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html…; http://jfklancer.com/pdf/wcexjune.pdf, which followed not
long after the Executive Sessions in may where the remarkable conversations
about the possibility of LHO being a government asset happened. Dulles was
present at the meeting, apparently arriving back in D.C. from Mississippi in
the early morning hours of 6/26/64. (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMK1xGA0XYc).

At 7:03 Dulles asks RFK, "Why did you pick me for this?" RFK
responds, "Because I know you," to which Dulles responds with a long
hearty laugh, adding, "I've been a little mad at you, you know, oh a
little bit on this Bay of Pigs book, but I might forget that very
easily.(laughing)" RFK: "Well, anyway..." Dulles: "I don't
stay angry long." RFK: "Fine." and turns the conversation back to
Mississippi. You can hear the irritation in RFK's voice at this point. He never
joins Dulles's laughing. “This Bay of Pigs book" that Dulles refers to
was, most likely, Haynes Johnson's The Bay of Pigs: The Leaders' Story of
Brigade 2506, which was published in May, 1964– the month before this
conversation. Given the long prior relationship between RFK and Haynes Johnson,
Dulles may have considered the book to be part of his ongoing propaganda battle
with RFK over the Bay of Pigs that started with the post-invasion press
maneuvering and the Taylor Commission. It is another indication of continued
antagonism between RFK and Dulles, further weakening the case for believing
that RFK would have nominated Dulles to serve on the Commission charged with
investigating his brother’s murder.

At 8:43, Dulles to LBJ, "You remember that I'm on this, that you put me
on this Commission that I'm working on with the Chief Justice and the others...
and that is reaching a point where I would not want to neglect that work...for
anything." The ellipses represent LBJ interjections of affirmation and
understanding. Johnson then assures him that he will have access to a
presidential jet and that he would be going down to Mississippi and back very
quickly.

The most remarkable thing about the conversation is that nothing is said
about RFK involvement in selecting Dulles for the Warren Commission. When
talking to RFK, Dulles did not say anything about serving on the Commission at
his request or nomination. In speaking with LBJ, he points out that he is
serving on the Commission by LBJ's appointment, but does not say anything to
him about his appointment being in any way connected with RFK. Also, the
exchange between Dulles and RFK, quoted above would seem to indicate that the
relationship between the two men was, even at this point, strained at best. You
have to hear the voice tones to really appreciate this. And this context, at
the 2:00 minute mark, Dulles opening his conversation with RFK by expressing
his condolences about, apparently, Ted Kennedy's illness, is downright strange.

Over all, the predominant subtext seems to be that Dulles's main concern is
that this is designed to divert him from his involvement with the Warren
Commission's final deliberations. Hence, the need to reassure him of the
minimal role he is to have in Mississippi, the expeditious travel arrangements,
and the time assurances. From the LBJ/RFK side, it is apparent that they have
agreed in advance to ask Dulles to do this. But, on the other hand, there is
absolutely nothing in this conversation to indicate that they had agreed
previously on his appointment to the Warren Commission by LBJ. Indeed,
listening to the whole conversation, especially that between RFK and Dulles
about the reason for his selection to go to Mississippi strongly militates
against believing that RFK had been involved in Dulles appointment to the
Commission.

“This is indeed a fascinating conversation, which I'm just now absorbing. I
completely agree with your analysis. I would add how unnerving it is to hear
Dulles tell Bobby how sorry he was about his brother (meaning Teddy, of course,
not JFK...but still).

“I would also add this as general context: At this point in his life, Bobby
is still in major turmoil and uncertain of how to proceed in his political
career. He suspects the assassination came from within the CIA's plot against
Castro, but he probably hasn't focused on Dulles yet, who after all was
supposedly out of the CIA by the time of the assassination. (RFK was likely
unaware of the extent to which Dulles was STILL involved with CIA affairs, as I
report in my new book.) And Bobby, though he and LBJ hated each other, was
still figuring out whether he should stay in the Johnson administration -- and
even had hopes that Johnson would pick him as his running mate in '64. (This
conversation about Mississippi took place in June of that year, while Bobby
didn't announce for the Senate until Aug. 25, after Johnson had made clear he
would not pick him.) So everything is up in the air for Bobby at this stage.

“The one thing he remained focused on during this period as attorney general
was civil rights, since he knew that would be a big part of his brother's and
his legacy. And my guess is Bobby thought that by sending a heavyweight like
the former director of the CIA down to Miss would put the fear of God in the
locals. At this point, they hadn't even found the bodies of the young civil
rights workers, and I'm sure RFK wanted to send a strong message to the
governor et al that they better cooperate if they knew what was good for them.

“Despite Dulles's concerns about being pulled away from his Warren
Commission work, Bobby clearly had no respect or concern for that (he knew by
then it was going to be a whitewash.) I doubt that sending Dulles to Miss was
an attempt to deflect him from his commission work (since he was only going to
be gone a couple of days). But it certainly showed that RFK considered this
civil rights crisis more important than whatever Dulles was doing on the
commission, whose conclusions RFK regarded as foregone.

“And finally, yes, I find the uncomfortable little exchange about "the
Bay of Pigs book" very telling. As Dan says, the ideological battle over
the telling of the Bay of Pigs story remained a huge point of contention
between the Dulles and Kennedy camps. Dulles clearly hated the Haynes Johnson
book (Johnson in fact told me he was the target of CIA spleen after the book
came out). And he was so disturbed by the way Schlesinger and Sorensen wrote
about the BoP (as a fast one pulled on JFK by the CIA) the following year, that
he put a great effort into telling his version of the operation in an article
for Harpers (which he finally abandoned). Dulles clearly knew that Haynes
Johnson was a Kennedy confidante and his book reflected that. Here, in this
conversation, Dulles tries to laugh off the fact that "I've been a little
made at you on this Bay of Pigs book." But, he goes on to say, I don't
stay mad long. Hah! This was a man who nursed grudges long and hard and never
forgot them.

“RFK's response to Dulles is terse and equally telling. He knows the subject
is a minefield and he moves swiftly on.

Another taped conversation relevant to this question is also available at http://web2.millercenter.org/…/lbj_k6311_05_16_dulles_trunc….
This is the call President Johnson made to Allen Dulles on November 29, 1963,
to advise him that he would be on the Commission. This is one of the shortest
calls that LBJ had to make to the potential members of the Commission. Unlike
others who were reluctant to serve, Dulles expressed no reluctance, the call
only lasted approximately a minute and thirty or so seconds, but Johnson
appears to try to repeat the arguments he made to others anyway.

In this call to Dulles, neither Dulles nor LBJ mention Robert Kennedy or his
possible involvement in Dulles selection. The conversation opens with LBJ
apologetically advising Dulles: “I have some unpleasant news for you.” Dulles
says, “Yes.” LBJ goes on, “We are going to name very shortly a presidential commission
made up of seven people ... as a study group to go into this FBI report ... in
connection with the assassination of our beloved friend, and you’ve got to go
on that for me.” Dulles responds, “Because I can really serve you,” and LBJ
interrupts saying, “I know you can, I know you can, not any doubt about it.
Just get ready now to go in there and do a good job. America’s got to be united
in this hour.” At this point the tape becomes somewhat garbled and hard to
understand as Dulles says something about his “previous job.” LBJ’s response is
very garbled for me to understand well, but LBJ can be heard to say “you always
do a good job as I found out long ago.”

It is generally considered that Dulles, in raising his previous job, is
expressing a concern that his service as the director of the CIA would
disqualify him from service on the commission. Many consider that he did so
based on a concern that it could serve as a basis for adverse propaganda. On
the other hand, it could be that he knew, especially considering the
circumstances of his departure from the job, that he had a serious conflict of
interest that should prevent his serving. The nature of the basis of his
concern is not apparent from the conversation. No one at the time, however,
raised Dulles apparent conflict of interest.

Is there a countervailing theory as to how Dulles got on the Warren
Commission? In his 2007 book, Brothers, David Talbot says that Allen Dulles
lobbied to be appointed to the Warren Commission. He also reported that
Dulles’s biographer, Peter Grose, concluded that there is “no evidence that the
younger Kennedy played any role in the composition of the commission.”

David Talbot returned to this issue in his recently published book, The
Devil’s Chessboard:

“The Dulles camp itself made no bones about the fact that the Old Man
aggressively lobbied to get appointed to the commission. Dick Helms later told
historian Michael Kurtz that he ‘personally persuaded’ Johnson to appoint
Dulles. According to Kurtz, Dulles and Helms ‘wanted to make sure no agency
secrets came out during the investigation.... And, of course, if Dulles was on
the commission that would ensure the agency would be safe. Johnson felt the
same way – he didn’t want the investigation to dig up anything strange.

“William Corson, a former Marine Corps officer and Navy intelligence agent
who was close to Dulles, confirmed that the spymaster pulled strings to get on
the Warren Commission. He ‘lobbied hard for the job,’ recalled Corson....”

The Devil’s Chessboard, pp. 573-574. Secretary of State Dean Rusk also
lobbied LBJ to appoint Dulles to the Commission.

Interestingly enough, I have not been able to find a recorded conversation
between LBJ and John J. McCloy regarding his service on the Warren Commission.
Talbot, however, finds it “preposterous” that RFK would have sought to have him
or Dulles placed on the commission investigating his brother’s murder:

“Like Dulles, whose former agency Bobby immediately suspected of a role in
the assassination, McCloy was a Cold War hard-liner. McCloy had resigned as
JFK’s chief arms negotiator at the end of 1962, in frustration with what he
felt was Soviet intransigence. But it was McCloy himself who was the obstacle.
Several months after Kennedy replaced him with Averell Harriman ... the two
superpowers reached a historic agreement to limit nuclear arms testing.”

Michael Kurtz’s characterization of the motivations behind LBJ appointing
Dulles to the commission is given some support from statements made in
Robarge’s article on McCone. Robarge reports that, while there is “[n]o
documentary evidence indicat[ing] whether McCone ordered the circumscribed
approach [to providing the Warren Commission information] on his own or at the
White House’s behest .... the DCI [McCone] shared the administration’s interest
in avoiding disclosures about covert actions that would circumstantially
implicate CIA in conspiracy theories and possibly lead to calls for a tough US
response against the perpetrators of the assassination.” [Emphasis added.]
Unfortunately, Robarge does not say where he found the expression of the
administration’s interest, or how it was expressed or communicated. He just
rules out it being done in a documented order from the White House. Later, in
the same article, he says, “McCone and Dulles both wanted to draw attention
away from CIA and encourage endorsement of the FBI’s conclusion soon after the
assassination that a lone gunman, uninvolved in a conspiracy, had killed John
Kennedy. The DCI could rest assured that his predecessor would keep a dutiful
watch over Agency equities and work to keep the commission from pursuing
provocative lines of investigation....” Indeed, in keeping with the interests
they shared with the Johnson administration. Dulles proved true to his comment
to LBJ on November 29, 1963, the he could really serve him. He, indeed, very
effectively protected the administration and the CIA’s interest in preventing a
real investigation of the murder.

In view of all this, it is my opinion that there is no sufficient proof that
RFK had anything to do with Allen Dulles being on the Warren Commission. There
is, however, evidence that RFK’s deputy at the Justice Department, Nicholas
Katzenbach, was lobbying for the appointment of a Presidential Commission.
Early after the assassination, LBJ was expressing a desire for a Texas Court of
Inquiry to handle the investigation into the assassination. It appears that the
idea for a Presidential commission came from Washington pundits, such as the
CIA connected Joseph Alsop, and from Nicholas Katzenbach. Katzenbach’s interest
in such a commission was first expressed by J. Edgar Hoover in a call to Walter
Jenkins on November 24. That same day, Eugene Rostow, Dean of Yale Law School,
called Bill Moyers and reported the same thing. On November 25, Katzenbach
delivered his famous memo on the subject to Bill Moyers. It is this memo that
begins:

“It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy’s
Assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United
States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to
this effect be made now.

“1. The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did
not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such
that he would have been convicted at trial.”

These actions on Katzenbach’s part, taken while RFK was largely
incapacitated by his grief in the days immediately following the assassination,
do not lend substantial credence to the idea that RFK nominated McCloy and Dulles
to serve on the commission. Indeed, there is no mention of such a nomination in
any of the contemporaneous documentation presently available on Katzenbach’s
activities.